Position changes in 2013 class

Any thoughts out there on possible position switches in this class? There seems to be a lot of commits that could have the "ATH" label. Dymonte shows great RB skills in his highlight films, Jourdan Lewis as a WR, and Wyatt Shallaman seems like a possibility too.

I think Dymonte Thomas stays at S. But Jourdan Lewis and Wyatt Shallman could both get looks on the opposite sides of the ball, even though Shallman has been told that he will be a running back. Those two are probably the only ones that get serious looks elsewhere position wise.

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You mean, sort of like how we used WIlliam Carr on a few occasions in the mid-90s as a situational (goal line or short yardage perhaps) fullback? I believe Hurst has some time in as an RB on his high school team despite being a DT. It's an interesting possibility to be sure, and he has the size to do it, I think.

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In my mind, I've always seen Shallman as a defensive end. I think he moves to that side of the ball due to his athleticism and already having Hopkins and Houma on scholarship and especially the emergence of Kerridge which gives the FB position depth next year.

Magnus, what's your view of Shallman as a RB. He is huge for the position, but there have been big RBs that have had a ton of college success (think Brandon Jacobs, every Wisconson RB). Can he be an every down back?

I kind of think the whole huge RB idea is a little overrated. Not to say big backs aren't good or can't be, but everyone gets excited and makes Brandon Jacobs comparisons whenever a big guy is potentially going to play RB, but Jacobs isn't that good. He never really seemed a huge difference maker for the Giants (I know he is with San Francisco now). He has had some decent years but overall he runs really upright and is not fast or even particularly agile. He is slow getting to the hole and if he doesn't have a full head of steam he really doesn't run over a whole lot of guys. When it has come to the playoffs, Ahmad Bradshaw has been far more productive for the Giants. All in all, I think this large RB theme is overplayed. I like larger RB's (6'0ish and 210-230) but I like guys who have some speed and agility so he can get to the hole before the play happens. I think Shallman might be fine but if not then maybe a position change could be in order. We shall see.

Agreed. There haven't been a great number of huge running backs. Everyone wants to find the next Ron Dayne or Mike Alstott, but Alstott was more of a complementary player. And Dayne did a lot of good things in college, but he's just one guy. In general, I think those guys fill a role (short yardage) and that's about it.

Obviously, Alstott's complement at TB was Dunn, but I can't remember who that would be at Purdue. Do you know? Also, do you think there are any players on the M roster who could perhaps play that role if we were to try the Thunder and Lightning approach with Shallman? Or would that just be a crappy idea to even consider?

It seems froms shallmans comments he really wants to stick at RB- and it seems like he was told he'd get a shot.

A big part of position changes and who plays what is honesty. Lots of coaches will promise shots to play prefered positions and then not follow through. It seems like Hoke and co. are honest about where they see players. Obviously some people will ultimately switch but my bet is that for the freshman year all recruits pretty much know where they will play. It will only change if they don't pan out, change physically, or the next recruiting class changes priorities.

Usually a players potential on one side of the ball outweighs what he wants to play. Not a perfect comparison but cam Gordon was and is much better suited for lb than wide receiver. He knew it and the coaches knew it. It's just a matter of how long it takes the player to realize this.

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I'm very intrigued by him in the backfield. Maybe this is just me reading into stuff, but it seems that the average pure fullback recruit is a lowly 3 star who will learn to block and get about 5 touches per season. I don't really see that in Shallman. He's pretty highly ranked and, if he says that he wants to play FB, I'm assuming it isn't because he likes blocking more than he likes tackling. On offense he will get the ball with more frequency than the average FB which makes me wonder what is in store for this offense.

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It must be assumed that the interior OL is rebuilt and much better than it is this year. It's a futile task to project positional deficiencies or strengths into the future. Rapid growth is commonplace in college football and so are productivity dropoffs due to graduation. Maybe in the future (hopefully this means next year) the dive will net 4-5 yards with regularity.

I thought that I saw that he was projected as a CB. I think that he will have the best shot there as Dymonte and Wilson should be manning both safety positions for a few years. He will have the opportunity to step right into the CB position.

I've said this before, but I wish we could clone Dymonte Thomas and play the other one at RB. However, I don't really see him moving away from defense, because nobody's really proven at safety and I think he could be starting by 2014.

Have there been any side changes at skill positions that have really worked out? I hear a lot about how we should try certain people like Dymonte or Furman at RB, but given what we see this year I don't know how that can be possible. There are, now obviously, a lot of intangibles that a RB has to possess. Maybe these guys have them, but I would just as soon chalk it up to them being amazing athletes vs high school competition. If there have been steller skill position side switches then I'm curious who they are.

Was CW recruited as a RB or CB? I'm wondering about those who were recruited as, say, a RB and switched to CB after enrolling and starred/were good. I don't think that Furman, for example, was ever recruited as a RB even though he was in HS.

where they had Carr and Woodson himself talking about his recruitment. This is going off memory from at least a few months back, but both said that Carr convincing him to play defense was a big part of why he ended up at Michigan. Woodson knew he'd be an underweight RB and wouldn't have the impact he wanted playing WR, but Carr saw the potential he had at CB and made some vague mention about playing a bit on offense and special teams. It wasn't until after his freshman season that Carr pulled him into his office and told him he'd be getting WR/RB/returner looks the following season.

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Recruited as a running back,but ended up at cornerback. He wasn't great,but he made a key play that stopped an osu touchdown and made them settle for a field goal back in 95 or 96 helped win the game.Barry Switzer, when he was at Oklahoma used to do it all the time, recruit running backs and switch them to linebacker, Carr did it with Ian Gold, many turned out to be excellent college players.

I believe that Hoke has said something with similar effect. Essentially saying that RB's are usually the most "athletic" guys on the team, and can usually make position switches and special team duty better than other players (in general).

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Recruited as a running back,but ended up at cornerback. He wasn't great,but he made a key play that stopped an osu touchdown and made them settle for a field goal back in 95 or 96 helped win the game.Barry Switzer, when he was at Oklahoma used to do it all the time, recruit running backs and switch them to linebacker, Carr did it with Ian Gold, many turned out to be excellent college players.

Dymonte Thomas, like Charles Woodson, has expressed the desire to play defense in college. Both Woodson and Thomas are/were great HS RB's but preferred D. Dymonte is going to play D and he going to be very very good.

I would love to see Furman move to RB - I've been campaigning for that for a while. It doesn't look like he'll get snaps any time soon at S, with guys like Wilson getting snaps over him already, Gant and Clark coming off redshirts and Dymonte coming in.

Furman was a great RB in high school, and seems to fit what Borges wants at the position. Plus he's really fast. Give him a try - all he's doing is special teams now anyway.

Not many guys switch from O to D/D to O and then find success at their new position. The biggest success in recent years is probably Quinton Washington, who was an offensive guard for a couple seasons before switch to defensive tackle. Cam Gordon went from WR to S to LB, but his success has been iffy. William Campbell went from DT to OG to DT, but that doesn't really count. Jordan Paskorz went from LB to TE, but he's buried on the bench and played in just one game this year (on special teams).

I don't know, I think it's possible, and when a guy's not getting PT on one side, why not try? Paskorz is a bad example because he's just not a good athlete. Cam is a better one, but he's had some success on D, and might have more if he didn't play behind JMFR and spent much of last year injured.

Furman's problem might be mental. You need to be able to diagnose quickly to play safety (or LB). He didn'tay DB in high school, and that might be why. RB, OTOH, was his position in HS, and he was really really good. There would be less of a learning curve for him there and he could just show of his elite athleticism. He would be more similar to QW in this regard, I think. And at this point, what do you have to lose?

Paskorz may not be the best athlete and might not contribute much on the field but he is one hell of a nice guy. I used to work at south quad cafeteria and would occasionally be stationed as a swiper. Used to have a lot of athletes come in. I would always greet people with many of the generic "hello, how you doing" type responses. Most of the students were generally polite back and some of the athletes would be cordial, but I always remember Paskorz would respond and be really cool and engaging. It was generally just shooting the shit but I always thought he was a damned nice guy. Ya I know, cool story bro. Also, I'm not posting this because I thought you were saying anything negative about him but just wanted to highlight he seems to be a cool guy.

But offense to defense the one that sticks out to me is Ian Gold. Came in as a running back, but switched to linebacker and spent 8 years in the NFL.

Less successful, but Morgan Trent was a wide receiver his redshirt year, then became a cornerback. But he bounced around the League for the previous 3 years.

I'm sure there are others that I'm not thinking about. Every back up running back gets some consideration elsewhere. I always think about radical same side of the ball switches. We've had some success taking quarterbacks and making them tight ends.

"Jokisch was actually preparing to transfer to Tennessee or Notre Dame to play hoops after his sophomore year, and then Bo politely called him in and convinced him to try him out for spring football. Schembechler’s nice guy act worked on Jokisch as he obviously cancelled the plans for the transfer decided to stay and play for Bo. The next fall Bo promptly tore him a new one."

Yeah, the conversation kind of took a tangent with M-Wolverine's comment above, I think...

Besides, it's not really a position change if a kid plays RB and S in high school, gets recruited for S, and then plays RB his freshman year. To me it only counts as a position *switch* if you weren't playing that position previously. So next year Thomas can't switch to RB, Shallman can't switch to DE, etc. because they already play those spots.

Have there been any side changes at skill positions that have really worked out? I hear a lot about how we should try certain people like Dymonte or Furman at RB, but given what we see this year I don't know how that can be possible....If there have been steller skill position side switches then I'm curious who they are.

Because with Furman and the discussion of Shallman getting a shot before moving, he meant from a skill position on offense to a defensive one. But with Dymonte he might still be talking about out of high school.

The thread started about what guys in the class might play positions other than what they play in high school. Then it came up that Shallman was going to get a shot at RB first, and after that any switches might happen. So the guy asked if that ever really works, a guy coming here to play one position, and was switched to another after trying out for one (specifically skill position players). I don't think Breaston was ever going to be anything but a WR/return guy. That's why he redshirted, because he had be a running QB just because he was the most talented guy on the field, and had to learn to be a receiver. More along the lines of Antonio Bass. (Sigh)

It did make me think of Jermaine Gonzales, who threw like 7 passes at QB as a freshman before he basically became a full time receiver; but that wasn't the most successful case.

HS and College are two very different levels. A great athlete in HS could put up big numbers at RB simply because he can beat everyone to the edge, or otherwise rely on his athleticism to win the battles. That isn't the case in college when a more in depth knowledge of the position as well as intangibles such as vision or presence in the pocket. A better athlete won't necessarily win the battle because the guy on the other side is also a great athlete.

When it comes to recruiting, I'm assuming that the coaches look beyond athleticism and look for the intangibles when determining what type of position is right. In the case of Dymonte or Ross they put up great numbers at RB, but is that because of an athletic mismatch or because of them being great RBs? This is why I was wondering about the position switches. Obviously the coaches saw something in Dymonte and Ross that said DB and not RB. We don't really know how the coaches rated them as RBs. Maybe they aren't good RBs and just great athletes at that position. Thus, big numbers won't necessarily translate to the college game. Maybe Dymonte has great vision and all the other RB stuff, but chances are the coaches think that it is better to go after true RBs like Smith, Green or Isaac.

This is why I am skeptical that position switches will necessarily work, so I wondered about specific examples.

I think that's where the Conley decommit hurts. We would have at least been able to give Lewis a shot at offense. Or Conley for that matter. If I recall, he also played both ways in high school and was a pretty good wr.

I will be surprised if Shallman doesn't end up on the defensive side of the ball. He is not the prime ball carrier on his HS team and I don't think he will be a great fit at RB for M either. Mattison is going to get that promising young man to play D.

I see Shallman's strength on offense being his versatility. I can see him at RB, FB and at TE catching passes. I can see Borges using that versatility to drive defense nuts along with players like Hayes/Norfleet.

I can see him takling about all of the possibilities that Shallman presents, drawing up tons of unique plays for months, and then instead putting Rawls in and asking him to run into a stacked interior line.

Dymonte Thomas - Safety depth looks scary without him. He has to stay in the secondary and I think he plays a lot this year.

Wyatt Shallman - I think he eventually moves to defense, but not this year.

Jourdan Lewis/Stribling - Possible one of them moves to offense, especially Lewis, who just got named All State at WR by the Detroit News. But I think at least one of Darboh and Chesson can break out and be our outside receiver, allowing Gallon to move to the slot and with Dileo, hopefully solidifying an average-ish receiving corps.

But yeah, our RB situation scares me next year if Fitz is not %100. Maybe we do more 4-5 receiver sets (with Justice Hayes and/or Norfleet split out) and and air it out more. Passing the ball to Hayes/Norfleet in space sounds like it could work.

Has there been much thought into what a switch to a left-handed QB and its affect on the OL? Meaning the RT position becomes more imporant than LT, and vice versa across the line. Should we expect a good amount of "switching sides" once Shane becomes a starter?

Hello to all maize and blue. I want to preface this all by saying that I am a lifelong Buckeye fan. I am not here to troll, nor to trash talk, but I truly enjoy good dialogue/debate with other college football fans... especially those who share different (in this case, opposite) opinions than I. For the record, I have already started counting down to the next OSU/UM football game, as I see the continuation of our great rivalry. Also, I am looking forward to a great basketball season, as I feel that your Wolverines deserve your top 3 ranking. I hope you don't mind me joining you guys for some good old sports talk...